SMARC GROWING STRONGER

SMARC 2.1.1 STANDARD GROWING

Currently the most adopted computer on module standard is Smarc (Smart Modular Architecture). It is offering great flexibility in I/O´s (Input/Output) design with its 314pin edge connectors. It is enabling the creation of various kind of applications with standard platform. The scalability of the platform is great with ability to carry arm and x86 -architecture SOC’s (system on chip) on same platform. Older standards like Q7 are not well suitable for arm due to the lack of I/O pins. It is well suited for applications where relatively high-performance computing and low power is needed. Smarc platform is scalable with performance from A7 -arm to AMD -Ryzen V1000 based board. It will also give the great flexibility for scaling in price as well. Prices starting in 30€ level up to boards costing 400€+. The platform will give you CPU -power, dram, emmc, display interfaces, USB, Ethernet, FD-Can, Mipi CSI and many other features & interfaces. It is also very future proof as there are plenty of options available and new one’s coming.

NEW NXP SOC in SMARC

There is a wave of NXP based SOC’s already available in Smarc. Full imx8 -line up with Nano, Mini, Plus, ULP, QuadMax -SOC’s are available for developers to utilize in their designs. The power of smarc is really unleashing the product design capabilities for different applications. Very soon we are seeing the imx93 -based smarc coming available. This product is from new imx9xxx line up and is in lower power/performance category. It has latest A55 -cores and M33 -low power cores. The GPU -part is not very strong so for demanding HDMI -graphics purpose some imx8 -models are working better. The power saving features instead are good in this SOC and are based on energy -flex architecture from NXP. There is also Arm® Ethos™-U65 microNPU which is enabling NPU (Neural Network Acceleration) for ML (Machine Learning) applications. 250Mhz M33 -cores are enabling real time compute & control without external micro controller. There is also CAN-FD interface. for demanding industrial control applications.

NEW Renesas G2L/V2L SOC in SMARC

The newcomer in to SMARC is Renesas SOC. This SOC is equipped with A55 and M33 -cores and is having graphics engine from Vulcan. It also has DRP-AI for ML application acceleration. There is also inline ECC -memory mipi-DSI, Dual Gigabit ethernet and CAN-FD. It has pretty much similar feature set than imx93 -based SMARC and is therefore offering an excellent option to that. This SMARC is giving more opportunities for scaling the application in price and performance. There are more products following up from same product family. Renesas is claiming that their DRP-AI acceleration is giving speed/power consumption second to none. It is going to be interesting to see the performance in real life. This product is especially recommended to headless applications with low cost in mind.

NEW TI AM62X

The other SOC coming in to SMARC lineup is TI AM62X. It has A53 and low power 400Mhz Arm® Cortex®-M4F MCU for ML -acceleration. It has Inline ECC -memory, Dual FD-CAN interfaces, Dual Gigabit Ethernets, LVDS etc. The AM62X SOC is having very wide coverage of the FUSA (Functional Safety Standard) for both industrial and automotive use -case. There are many certifications in the place or in process. Wide variety of security features are as well available from secure boot to cryptographic. Overall, this platform is giving and good all-round edge computing performance and is comparable to imx8 -family. Overall AM62X is suitable for Industrial HMI, in vehicle control & monitoring, EV -charging and touchless building access.

WHY SO MANY OPTIONS?

As the supply chain & world is changing rapidly it is better to have more options than few options. SMARC is now offering TRUE multi-vendor, multi-SOC -platform where the scalability is first in first class. Applications are more and more software driven even in the industry and this is making the underlying hardware even more important. It is preferable that the hardware is scalable and can run the application with right performance and power envelope. Too often hardware is locked too early by design and can’t be changed in later stage. Not to talk about product upgrades which needs to be done due to new features needed or need for completely new applications. There can be also different scaling needs in product pricing where the hardware is playing key part. World is evolving faster pace and needs from customers as well. There is most likely nobody who can forecast reliably the needs in future. So, it is better to be ready for changing needs rather than be sorry.

 MAKING SELECTION IS DIFFICULT?

Making selection of the SMARC and SOC in it can be difficult as you do not know what is right for your current application. For sure you can buy quite few modules and test them with your application. The problem is that you need to adopt your application with different hardware. This can be time consuming and cumbersome. For this there is a solution called SimpleFLex it is virtualizing SMARC I/O’s to application. It is a middleware software which is taking care of the I/O routing and that way the application does not need to be changed. This will make It possible just to change the module without the need to change actual application code. This will take out the complexity of testing your application with different modules. You can even test x86 based modules and arm -based modules in the same way. This middle layer software is not production ready so you can’t now use it in your final application. If you are still thinking your next computer platform, think twice and get yourself familiar with SMARC. It is the most flexible and scalable low power computer platform for most of the professional applications.

This one for Finnish speaking readers